Sanctions Against Russia – History Shows That the West Must Reflect on Their Long-Term Consequences.
If breaking ties is easy, building them is a long and difficult process.
The economic sanctions put in place against the Russian economy have been the subject of very little prior reflection. Depending on the activities affected, and on their duration, which is currently unpredictable but potentially long, their effects may prove to be significant and very different from what we imagine a priori. A historical example allows us to understand this.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, mercantilism was less an economic policy than a commercial tool at the service of rivalries between European nations. Beyond periods of war, which were very frequent, when blockades of enemy ports and the boarding of merchant ships by war fleets and privateers were common practice, protectionism (massive taxation of imports) or colonial monopolies (trade in commodities reserved for merchants from the metropolis) aimed to weaken strategic adversaries.
The long Franco-English rivalry, which lasted at least from the reign of Louis XIV (from 1643 to 1715) to the battle of Waterloo (1815), and which has been described as the “Second Hundred Years' War”, saw these behaviors recurring. The development of the Royal Navy, which represented a considerable expense for the English government, was at the service of a commercial as well as military expansion, which was largely achieved through the appropriation with an armed hand of the trade and colonies of other powers. This was the case with Canada, lost by France at the end of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763).
As some historians have recently recalled, England's primary objective was to permanently weaken the trade of its main strategic adversary in Europe. However, if, during armed conflicts, naval superiority reduced, sometimes significantly, French maritime trade, it resumed vigorously as soon as peace returned, so that, at least until the Revolution, French foreign trade grew just as fast as English trade.
The British strategy was therefore not so much to temporarily reduce this trade as to lead French merchants to redirect their activity towards other partners and other products. France was thus excluded from the most profitable products in international trade and had to make costly reallocations of resources, but it was not certain that this would be a disadvantage in the long term. French trade is now oriented more towards the continent (Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland) and towards the transformation of national raw materials into luxury products with high added value.
The peak of this reorientation was the continental blockade, during which even neutral ships were excluded from the ports of the Empire and its continental allies, while France absorbed or subjugated many European countries and integrated them into its economy. But these economic relations lasted well beyond 1815: throughout the 19th century, French trade was much more European than English trade. French entrepreneurs and capital played an essential role in the industrialization and modernization of Europe, from Spain to the Balkans and Russia.
This reorientation certainly allowed England to keep control of maritime and colonial trade for a long time. But this specialization became a fragility during the second industrial revolution of the late nineteenth century or decolonization in the second half of the twentieth century until it led ... to the Brexit.
Final Thoughts
It would therefore be prudent that the West ask about the consequences, not only immediate military but also long-term strategic, of sanctions against Russia on the reorientation of its trade, for example towards China. For, if breaking ties is easy, building them is a long and difficult process.